Diffidence

Do you want to know something weird and unnatural?
Pants that zip in the back.

Do you want to know something else that happened to me that was very weird and unnatural?

"Yes."

The Story of the Bananas That Would Never Get Ripe

First, you must know that I eat a banana every work day. I prefer this breakfast because it's tasty while not being messy or requiring a microwave. For those of you who would like to yell at me about how I should be eating home grown eggs, wild berries, and wheat chaff for breakfast, save it. I do that on the weekend when I can make a mess and don't have to balance a boiling hot bowl while climbing down a rickety spiral staircase in heels.

(Though, the microwave/staircase situation should improve with the new workplace.)

Secondly, you must know that Mike and I go grocery shopping on the weekend whenever Mike has resolved with himself that it is indeed time to grocery shopping. I like to go soon after I wake up on Saturday, but this is abominable to Mike, so we wait until I've nagged him enough and then we go. Why don't I just go by myself? Because grocery shopping is a feat too terrible to take on by oneself. Plus, Mike is like uncannily good at spotting bargains.

One time, I had company coming in on Saturday, so in order to have food and not be worst hostess in the world, we had to go grocery shopping on Friday night.
It was a hot date.
No, really, it was. Because living in Georgia is hot always!

Then that weekend, we were able to enjoy our days off and not have to make any special trips to go pick up food. We decided that, perhaps, it is better to get grocery shopping out of the way on Fridays so that we can just chill on Saturdays. (btw, if you go on Sunday, you really don't get a day off because then it's church-grocery shopping-cooking-choir-church-sleep)

Now, see, the thing about bananas is that I like them barely ripe. A clean yellow color is best. Yellow with a little green is good. Yellow with a few freckles is tolerable. But anything else = horrible.
When bananas are past their prime, not only is the banana-taste amplified to a disgusting level, but the texture of it is eerily similar to fecal matter.

Some ol' fokes may like dem like dis.
But not I.

When we went shopping on Saturday, I would be at the mercy of whatever was already picked over in the banana selection department. Sometimes, I would be stuck getting yellow ones which were great on Monday and Tuesday. By Wednesday, things were getting iffy, and my Thursday and Friday bananas would've been better in a smoothie. Or pudding. Or the trash can.

Last Friday, we went to the grocery store, and I faced an even greater dilemma. Shopping one day earlier means I have to buy my bananas that much greener so that I won't have to torture myself with rotten food at the end of the week.

Luckily, there were some very green ones on the display. I put these in the cart thinking that surely they would be green/yellow by Monday and a good yellow by Thursday.

Side note: the worst is when they start turning brown while they're still green. You can't just skip phases in your life, banana. You have to suffer through it all just like everyone else does.

Sunday night came, and I was packing my lunch. The banana was still very green. Maybe it will be more yellow tomorrow, I thought optimistically as I stuck it in my bag.

Monday morning, I did not get to eat my banana. It was so hard, I couldn't even bend it. No, that's not what she said. The skin was unbreakable. I couldn't even penetrate it. No, that's not what she said.

Tuesday, same banana, same story. These were the bananas that never got ripe. Mike was like, "Maybe you bought plantains by mistake", but on one of the bananas, there was an innocent little Dole sticker that said "Banana". I figured bananas wouldn't just blatantly lie about their identity like that.

Wednesday, I finally decided to find out what was really in this thing. I tore it open with my hands like Tarzan because it didn't open like a normal banana. It was stiff, and the skin still clung to the fruit. I broke the fruit apart, and it snapped in half like Styrofoam. Then I put it in my mouth. Yep. Super ripe and so chalky tasting that I spit it back out.

I felt horribly betrayed. It was like the time I found out that Harriet Tubman's Underground Railroad was not only not underground, but it also wasn't a railroad. I think I was less upset about Santa not being real than I was about the Underground Railroad not being, in fact, a railroad under the ground.

So anyway, it was a bunch of bananas gone to waste. I don't even think that if I put them in my compost that they would decompose. They were like freeze-dried on the inside. Slowdance on the inside. Taking Back Sunday. What?

I kind of want to return them to the store, but Mike is all like, "The bananas were cheap. No reason to return them."
It's not really about the money with me, though. It's about principle. And the fact that later in life, I could be like, "Hey- remember that time I returned the bananas that would never get ripe?"

Never exposed to Ethylene,
TWS